


Manrepeller

by greyskais



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Comedy of Errors, Fluff and Crack, Graphic Descriptions of Fashion, Mingyu wants Wonwoo to Notice Her, Mutual Pining, Not sure what I'm doing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a little too much nylon magazine, maybe idk hahahahahahaha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7364956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskais/pseuds/greyskais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mingyu Kim ups her style game to get Hot Beanie Guy in her coding tute to Notice Her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manrepeller

**Author's Note:**

> i sincerely apologise i'm probably not as funny as i think i am
> 
> the title is inspired by the fashion website manrepeller, and also because i totally support wearing cute clothes for oneself even if they may be incomprehensible to the opposite gender
> 
> shoutouts to my dearest M, who fielded the first rough version though our facebook chat; D, the top jeonghan trash of her generation; S, who inspired the physics line and whom i hope doesn't suffer too much next semester; and buxiban, who's wanted to read this for a while

It’s the first day of class and Mingyu Kim is late.

 

Honestly, she stayed out until three and held her friend Seokmin’s hair as he chundered into the gutter outside Yogurberry (which she shouldn’t have done), but also honestly, she thought she’d be at least awake enough for an afternoon class at three. Mingyu has run on less sleep, but clearly her body had decided that today of all days was a good day to catch up on her considerable sleep debt. It’s a quarter to. She’s staggering out of her apartment, still trying to scrub the sleep gunk from her eyes and shoving something that is probably her laptop and a protein bar in the first bag her hand landed on. Something that feels like the toilet slippers are on her feet. Mingyu has no idea what she’s doing.

 

All she knows is, when she slinks into the lecture theatre ten minutes late, is that she’s sweating and that running up the hill to Civil Engineering was more exercise than she’s done all summer. It’s the first day of class and Mingyu, by God, is she lost, does she have no idea what class she’s in. A small miracle comes in the form of her glasses being in her bag, so she can _see_ , which is good. The lecturer has helpfully put up an introductory slide that identifies the course as a coding one. Mingyu feels slightly less screwed. She at least can’t fuck up the first lecture of semester, because it’s not physics. Physics comes later. Another small miracle.

 

Mingyu opens her laptop, pulling up a blank document as the sleep inertia clears and she starts to take in what the lecturer’s saying. Facebook’s already open from last night, and Seokmin’s sent her like, seven messages already alternately proclaiming his desire for death in all caps and thanking her for stopping him from losing his Chamisul all over his new NMDs. Jihoon’s posted a picture of her semi-groping Soonyoung, whose Asian flush could probably light the whole city on New Year’s Eve with something to spare. Mingyu’s lost seven minutes and the lecturer has jumped three slides again. She shrugs to herself. It’s okay. She can watch the lecture online later. Mingyu sends a snapchat to the boys: ‘lmao idk whats goin on save me’. She’s lost another minute. Her plan to salvage her WAM this semester is already going down the drain.

 

The door creaks open, and Mingyu lazily glances over. She freezes. Some distant and rebellious part of her brain notes that the miracle of having her glasses on her was a bigger one than she had originally thought.

 

Walking into the room is the hottest guy Mingyu has ever seen in all her nineteen years of seeing. He’s tall, probably has a couple of centimetres on her, dressed in a black Thrasher t-shirt that hangs off his broad shoulders. His jeans are probably more rips and holes than actual jeans, not that she’s complaining - his legs are nice, if skinny. Despite the god-awful heat, he’s wearing a beanie over his flyaway black hair, one with a cute fluffy bobble that does fuck-all to detract from his intimidating hotness. His sharp gaze, tall nose and sensual mouth have the combined effect of a burning intensity somewhat akin to Cyclops’ heat vision, or a Hitachi straight to the clit. _Oh_. Mingyu sinks down in her seat and looks down in dismay at her feet, toenails painted a chipped teal blue poking out from her older brother’s ratty Adidas slides. She hasn’t even washed her face today. What if Hot Beanie Guy _looks at her_? She’s fucked. Double-fucked, more fucked than physics.

 

Mingyu wishes she hadn’t gotten out of bed. The universe was giving her a sign when it made her late today.

 

* * *

 

 

After having a life crisis in Coding and thrashing it out face-down on her bed, Mingyu comes up with a plan of action. There’s no way she can approach Hot Beanie Guy herself, no way, not when just his face makes her legs turn to jelly. No. She’s going to get him to Notice Her.

 

She shows up to the first tute of the semester, having been much encouraged by Refinery29, Nylon Magazine, and fashion tumblrs of questionable taste, in a mustard yellow ribbed halter top, button fly flare jeans, and fluffy pompom earrings that bounce and tickle her neck when she walks. The outfit is just cool enough for the ungodly thirty nine degrees that it is, and is topped off with a black, floppy, wide-brimmed hat.

 

Mingyu has miscalculated. She’d only dressed like this on speculation, not because she was actually expecting Hot Beanie Guy to be in her tute. But he’s already seated with his laptop across the room, wearing another black t-shirt and a wire-framed glasses that are sliding down his amazing nose. Mingyu steels herself and does her best model walk, claiming the free seat in front of Hot Beanie Guy, giving him a perfect view of the back of her head. Which is good. Baby steps. Next tutorial she’ll be able to handle facing him, but like, not today. Her nerves are shredded enough. Mingyu feels vaguely ridiculous, and catches the tutor giving her an odd look. She stares back blankly, until the tutor touches his head and Mingyu snatches the hat off her head, burning with mortification.

 

Okay. It’s still week one. She has twelve more weeks to up her style game and get Hot Beanie Guy to Notice Her. Mingyu’s got this.

 

She steals a pink Chanel boucle suit from her mum’s closet when she goes back for the family dinner on Sunday, celebrating Jongin coming back from Fashion Week in Lisbon. Ignoring the cries of her neglected Star Wars sweats in the pile in front of her closet, Mingyu digs out a sleeveless Stussy hoodie and layers it under the suit, pairing with soccer socks and Huaraches. Jongin wakes up just in time to see her going out the door with a nut bar crammed in her mouth, in the suit, carrying her laptop and struggling with her sunglasses. He lets out a faintly bemused noise, deciding that he must be seeing things, and goes back to bed to sleep off the flight from Portugal.

 

Mingyu sweats bullets all the way from her apartment, up the hill to Coding. She prays to God that her mother doesn’t notice that her pink suit’s gone, and that she doesn’t mark it up with sweat. She also prays that making a spectacle of herself walking into the lecture room doesn’t go to waste. Mingyu struts to the front of the lecture room and plops herself down where everyone can see her, adjusting her skirt because she’s a head taller than her mum, and it’s short - but Hot Beanie Guy, sitting at the edge of her vision, is staring quite resolutely at the projector display. Mingyu pouts to herself, because she spent days combing through her Nylon mags coming up with this outfit, and she can't really understand why she hasn't at least gotten a reaction yet. Well, no reaction is an inaccurate statement honestly, because half of the class seem to have abandoned the lecture for staring at her like she’s crazy, and the other half may or may not be checking out her legs. Hot Beanie Guy is still tapping away diligently at his laptop and Mingyu doesn't get it, and later, when she meets Jihoon for chicken and beer, he gives her shit for wearing a suit. All in all, a practical failure.

 

Mingyu doesn’t check her Snapchat until she gets home, and finds that Jihoon’s sneakily snapped her and her pink suit to all of the boys. They also give her shit, except for maybe Seungkwan, who doesn’t know how to phrase a well-intentioned comment in a manner that conveys that it’s well-intentioned. Asking her if someone has died isn’t the worst thing he’s ever asked Mingyu in relation to her life choices.

 

She has the mad idea of layering her sole satin and lace bias cut slip under an oversized, V-neck knit sweater and an oxblood leather miniskirt. Before Jihoon has the chance to snapchat her with an unflattering filter and an even more unflattering caption, Mingyu takes it upon herself to snapchat her next outfit to the boys, spamming them with probably unnecessarily sexy shots of her shoulders and the lace hem of the slip peeping from under her skirt. Soonyoung snaps her back with sheet marks on his face and asks who she’s trying to impress. Mingyu ignores him for the time being, chucking on a pair of Vans and running out the door. All she does during tute is flip her hair and bend over her notes more than necessary to show off the back of her neck, but Hot Beanie Guy’s face, reflected in the carefully positioned bezel of her Macbook, is as blank and intimidating-hot as ever.

 

Soonyoung stages an intervention and shows up at her apartment with Nandos and Messina, so naturally Mingyu spills her guts. Bad idea. Soonyoung’s snapchat name isn’t kwonspoiler for nothing. By the next morning, Seokmin, Seungkwan, Vernon, and Jihoon all know about Hot Beanie Guy. Vernon’s offering fashion advice. He sends her a picture of himself in about three different flannels, a bandana and what might be an inflatable donut through Kakao, because Snapchat doesn’t immortalise the image enough, apparently. Mingyu saves the picture for Vernon’s next birthday spam and cackles to herself. Jongin gives her look that says he thinks she’s possessed.

 

Seungkwan’s fashion advice comes off a bit bitchier, but it helps when Mingyu starts running out of ideas. It’s been weeks and Mingyu’s forgotten what wearing sweatpants outside the house feels like, throwing them aside in lieu of a pair of calf-length culottes and a fuzzy bejewelled crop jumper, or a knit striped midi pencil skirt and swishy lace babydoll blouse with a Nike sports bra beneath.

 

She starts _really_ running out of ideas when Hot Beanie Guy doesn't even bat an eyelid when Mingyu sashays in, one lecture, in a silk grey knotted blouse, outrageous costume jewels and iridescent hyacinth blue _hanbok_ skirt pinned into artful bustles on one side. All this is replete with white ankle socks and six inch, break-an-ankle black suede almond toe stiletto platforms. She lost count of how many times she nearly stacked it on the hill. It all seems worth it when Mingyu sweeps into her usual seat. That is, until she notices Hot Beanie Guy.  

 

Mingyu snaps open her laptop smartly, opens Facebook, and starts screaming at Soonyoung.

 

> _kim mango_ : soonsoonsoonsoon
> 
> _kim mango_ : omg what is he doing
> 
> _kim mango_ : why
> 
> _kim mango:_ isn't he
> 
> _kim mango_ : reacting i am literally about to break my ankle in these shoes
> 
> _kim mango_ : surely he knows i exist right!!!
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : omg wat is he doin
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : i could spot u from a mile away
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : every1 else is looking @ u right
> 
> _kim mango_ : idk man!!
> 
> _kim mango_ : i think the guy next to me just pissed himself a lil bit
> 
> _kim mango_ : but mr beanie???
> 
> _kim mango_ : i just??
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : dude idk wat else u do
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : mb u should just kidnap him
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : throw him in a closet somewhere
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : and
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : u know ;D ;D ;D
> 
> _kim mango_ : FUCK
> 
> _kim mango_ : FUCKFUCKFUCKK
> 
> _kim mango_ : I THINK HES LOOKING AT ME FUCK WHAT DO I DO
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : !!!!!
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : stiCK UR BOOBS OUT
> 
> _kwon soonana_ : GOGOOGOGOGO lEGS BOOBS HAIR FLIP FLIP hAIR GO

 

So Mingyu does. She sits straighter, flips her hair, crosses her legs, and prays to God that the comp sci guy with the pepperoni face next to her really hasn’t pissed his pants.

 

* * *

 

 

Across the room, there’s a guy in a black t-shirt and a white cap who’s too good at keeping his pokerface up and taking glances out of the corner of his eye, unnoticed, at the girl in the _hanbok_. His name is Wonwoo Jeon, and he’s staring at the projector and losing his everloving, mother-I-have-sinned-before-God shit.

 

He’d kept it together, sort of, when she’d waltzed into his tute and into his life with pompom earrings bouncing around her shoulders (though Wonwoo had decided in a second that he was pretty much doomed to fail Coding, because he couldn’t focus on anything except Miss Pompoms’ shoulderblades). He’d mostly survived her dangerously short pink miniskirt and leg-accentuating knee-highs. He’d even come out more than sixty percent intact when she’d worn that sweater that kept sliding off her shoulders, when she’d kept flipping her hair during the tute, accentuating the beautiful line of her neck and shoulders (though Wonwoo had left class with a still-blank notebook and an equally blank mental breakdown face).

 

But now - one side of her skirt is sliding down her gorgeous, _gorgeous_ leg, and she’s shaking out her long, dark hair. Wonwoo’s been on Kakaotalk on his laptop for the past hour. He starts frantically mashing the keyboard with as inconspicuous a face as he can muster.

 

> __jeonww_ : junhui call my mum and tell her i love her im gonna die in this lecture room
> 
> _jun.wen_ : what why
> 
> __jeonww_ : legs
> 
> _jun.wen_ : you're in nerdy class right whose legs are you looking at
> 
> _ _jeonww_ : boobs
> 
> _jun.wen_ : oh
> 
> _jun.wen_ : ohhhhhhhhh
> 
> _jun.wen_ : is it that girl again
> 
> _jun.wen_ : you’re staring at her like massive creep again aren’t you
> 
> _ _jeonww_ : what
> 
> _jun.wen_ : whipped

 

Junhui, ever supportive, helpfully links him a ten hour long mix of whip cracking noises on Youtube.

 

> __jeonww_ : fk off
> 
> _jun.wen_ : k bye
> 
> __jeonww_ : srs tho shes so gorgeous
> 
> __jeonww_ : i can’t
> 
> __jeonww_ : ok so she just answered sm question on the spot shes smart too kill me now
> 
> _jun.wen_ : do you want me to bring seungcheol into this or are you going to grow a pair and talk to her for god's sake

 

Wonwoo logs out and barely restrains himself from slamming his laptop shut and screaming the whole way down to hell.

 

* * *

 

 

Mingyu's _hanbok_ outfit fails to catch the attention of Hot Beanie Guy, but it certainly does catch the attention of a street style photographer in the city as she eats two orders of takoyaki alone to console herself over her most recent outfit failure.

 

She’s sitting across the table from Jongin the next morning when Jongin looks up from his phone and shows it to her. Mingyu nearly chokes on her spoon. She’s on someone’s Instagram, in the outfit she’d worn yesterday. Her picture has something like six hundred likes.

“Mingoo,” Jongin starts, calling her by her pet name, which is a sign that he wants to have a Serios Older Brother Talk. Mingyu starts shovelling cereal into her face so that Jongin can't ask her awkward questions, but he just sighs and waits for her to finish, which is not long cause she's really stuffing her face. Mingyu didn't really think this through.

 

“Is this why you've been wearing really Nylon outfits recently?” he asks, innocently enough.

Mingyu turns red because that's not it. She's incapable of lying even by omission, because she's the sort of kid that can't keep her mouth shut when she's in a dilemma. Jongin gives her a _look_ , and Mingyu’s gone. She blurts out everything about Hot Beanie Guy and getting his attention in a mad tumble, waving around her cereal spoon and flicking drops of milk all over the kitchen counter. Jongin waits for her to finish, and then stares at her for a while.

 

Mingyu explodes. “What are you looking at, oh my god, what is it!'

Jongin tilts his head at her and asks, “Are you treating Beanie Guy like a boy or like a peahen?”

Mingyu is flummoxed. “Am I what?”

 

Jongin chuckles and it's completely infuriating, because why the hell is he acting like this - it's not like he's any good with guys either. “Pretty much what you're doing now is like a peacock spreading its tail feathers to attract a peahen. If he doesn't react to that, then he's probably not the type of person to care about people's appearances which means that he's probably a good sort and not shallow, and that you have to try something different.”

“Oh.”

“Have you even talked to him yet, Gyu? Who knows, once you talk to him, you might find that he's not your type?”

Mingyu suddenly feels very silly about all of this. She kind of wants to curse Jongin for being rational, but he never means badly. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. She's gone this far into the semester so, she might as well keep going, because it'd look funny if she didn't dress cute anymore. Mingyu’s committed, goddamn it. She pushes back the chair with a screech and flees to dive into her closet.

 

Wonwoo gets the same link from Junhui, whose Facebook stalking game is predictably too strong, and who has figured out who Miss Pompoms is, though Wonwoo had refused to give away her Facebook name. He chokes on a spoonful of fried egg. His roommate Seungcheol, from whom he is desperately trying to hide his embarrassing crush from, perks up and takes notice. How can Wonwoo not make a spectacle of himself when the gorgeous amazon from his coding class is a _viral street style phenomenon_ and is so photogenic he could die?

 

Seungcheol tries to snatch Wonwoo's phone out of his hand, but Wonwoo locks it and shoves it into his pocket and makes a huge show of coughing and hacking to get Seungcheol to leave off. Wonwoo is romantically disastrous enough and self aware enough to know that getting Seungcheol, self-proclaimed love guru by sole virtue of having had a boyfriend first, involved would be a Bad Idea.

 

Later that day, Wonwoo flees his coding lecture as soon as the professor lets them out because Miss Pompoms (who he still can't call Mingyu) has gone all out today, wearing torn loose boyfriend jeans, a velvet and satin embroidered bomber jacket, glittery heeled sandals, and a white vneck tshirt that's nearly sheer. When Mingyu took off her jacket and bent forward to grab something from her bag, the back of her shirt pressed against the straps and band of her bra, which was black and distractingly, distressingly thin. Wonwoo simultaneously thanks the heavens for Mingyu Kim, curses the gods that this is his fate, and hates himself for having to adjust his increasingly tight pants in public over the imprint of the back of a girl's bra through her shirt.

 

He charges into Junhui's apartment after class as much a Wonwoo Jeon could ever charge into an apartment, and flings himself onto Junhui's couch. This is really more like quietly unlocking the door, closing it with a polite tap, and then leaning forward until gravity does the rest of the work and gently delivers him face down into the fluffy cushions. Junhui pokes his head out of the kitchen and raises his eyebrow.

“Well hello to you too,” he greets.

“Please kill me,” is the muffled cry that comes from the sofa cushions.

“Would you prefer by a frying pan to the back of the head, or a cleaver to the face?”

Wonwoo lifts his head and narrows his eyes at Junhui.

“If you want me to be nice, then don't ask me to kill you first,” Junhui snorts, turning back into the kitchen and rummaging noisily. “What's up?”

His only response is a small, pathetic cushion-muffled noise.

Junhui pokes his head out of the kitchen again with a ramen pot and a meat cleaver in hand and goes, “Right. This is getting out of control, your self-in-crush is pathetic, and you need an intervention. Up you get. We're having some ramen with this beef I found in the fridge, and then we're going out to get you laid.”

Wonwoo thinks this sounds like a terrible idea. Junhui produces a chopping board and said dubious meat and starts bashing away; he produces a good enough facsimile of Shenzhen beef broth noodles. They come out tasting pretty weird, but Junhui shoves him out and locks the door behind him and off they go to this club near their university, before Wonwoo can say anything that even remotely sounds like ‘salmonella’, or ‘food poisoning’.

 

Junhui coughs up for shots of Triple Sec and plonks Wonwoo down on a seat at the bar, surveying the club like he’s the king of it all. Yeah, right. Junhui’s just as broke as the rest of them, except his dad’s probably feeling a bit better about him after his WAM had climbed three points last semester. Wonwoo knows it’s not Junhui’s name that’s on the credit card that Junhui used to pay.

“Alright, take your pick,” he says, gesturing expansively. “Let Wingman Wen work his magic.”

_Oh shit_ , Wonwoo thinks. _Oh shit_.

“Oh shit what?”

Oh shit, he said that aloud. Oh shit, he's screwed fucking screwed. Wonwoo must be hallucinating. Miss Pompoms, in the same outfit as before, is sitting on one of the VIP decks, surrounded by a pack of beautiful men.

“For the record, you said all of that aloud as well,” Junhui points out. “What the fuck, Jeon, this is a _sign_!”

He looks in the direction in which Wonwoo is staring. Miss Pompoms has her head tilted back in laughter, long dark hair spilling down her back. It's steamy in the club from the body heat of so many uni students packed together, and her shirt is sticking to her body. One of the guys, a hazel-eyed brunette that looks a little like a young Leonardo Dicaprio, leans forward and says something that has  the rest of the guys nearly falling off their chairs in laughter as Miss Pompoms cringes and hides her face, shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

 

On the other side of the club, Mingyu is being mercilessly roasted by her boys for her wild peacock displays, and the fact that she hasn't even talked to Hot Beanie Guy face to face yet.

“C'mon, Mingyu, we don't even have his Facebook profile, how the hell do we know if he's as hot as you say?” Seungkwan demands, waving his cranberry martini around and arching a brow in his most diva-like fashion. “We all know your taste in men.”

“ _Oh_ , Mr Jang,” Seokmin starts, putting on a ridiculous falsetto, “what ridiculous forearms you have! And such squinty little eyes! Let me make love to your vigorous chest hair and have, like, a bajillion of your babies!”

“Oh my God, Seokmin, _fuck off_!” Mingyu says with feeling. She pummels Seokmin until he begs for mercy. Junior high school had been a deeply confusing and embarrassing period in her life.

“Forget Mingyu's taste in men, this poor kid is the _real_ unlucky swot to be on the receiving end of Gyu level romantic incompetence,” Jihoon snipes, poking Mingyu in the side hard enough to make her squeal. “What the hell have you been doing to try to woo this kid? Dressing up like a 70s _kkangpae_ member?”

“It’s _street style_ ,” Mingyu insists. Blushing, she adds, “And nobody say I'm not aware that dressing cute is probably not working. Jongin told me I was acting like a peacock this morning.”

 

“So this kid would be the peahen…” Vernon muses. He’s got an expression on his face that says he’s going to go science on them. “Wow, _noona_ , didn't know you had a thing for mpreg?”

Mingyu makes various dying noises and curls up as small as a hundred and eighty centimetre tall human flail on a barstool can curl up. Seungkwan, Seokmin and Jihoon shit themselves laughing and Vernon flashes a grin, pleased that his jibe has been well-received. Mingyu can hear Soonyoung laughing with them, but the older boy curls an arm around her shoulders and presses her against his side.

“Our Mingyu has hidden depths, huh?” he teases. Mingyu wants to die for real. “But seriously, we have to stage an intervention or something. How could it be like, what? Seven weeks already? And he still hasn't made a move to talk to you, or?”

“ _Forget_ making a move, he doesn't even notice I'm there,” Mingyu pouts.

 

Her boys all start falling over themselves to suggest ways in which Mingyu can capture her chosen pokemon, well, aside from Seungkwan throwing shade on Hot Beanie Guys taste as well as his eyesight, and Jihoon suggesting he call certain people he knows, who know people who do _things_. Soonyoung's hand on the small of her back is a constant reminder that her boys have got her.

“Jesus Christ, Jihoon, I _like_ him! I don't need you to get someone to chain him up and throw him off a pier for me!” she laughs, taking a good gulp of her beer.

“Speaking of piers, piers and the ocean, ocean and the little mermaid, so why don't you just kiss the boy?” Vernon suggests. Soonyoung nearly snorts his beer all over his lap.

Mingyu hurriedly lifts her glass and makes a proposition before Seungkwan and Seokmin can bellow anymore of 'Kiss The Girl'. The drunker they get, the more vocal acrobatics seem to take place, and she's not nearly drunk enough yet to handle that sort of spectacle.

“Okay, okay, okay, next time I see him I'm going to talk to him!”

“Toast to it!”

“Toast!”

“ _Ay_ , get it hopeless Mingyu!”

“Just saying, you should pash first and talk later - “

Mingyu flings a wad of serviettes at Vernon.

 

Wonwoo’s rapidly losing his shit on the other side of the club. _Damn_ if Miss Pompoms has ever looked more beautiful than when she's laughing and throwing serviettes at Baby Dicaprio. She looks fun but down to earth, bold but unpretentious, throwing back a Corona and flashing her cute, pointy canines. The fact that the blond with sharp eyes has a hand hovering protectively on her back makes a knot form in wonwoo's stomach. What if Miss Pompoms already has a boyfriend? He hadn't even thought about that. Wonwoo had decided pretty early on that Miss Pompoms was way too _together_ to be in his league, but he never imagined her hanging on the arm of another guy, one as brilliant as her.

“Alright,” Junhui decides, slamming his shot glass down on the bar. “That's her then. Up we go, you're going to talk to her tonight.”

The knot in Wonwoo's stomach turns into something like a slowly turning whirlpool. “I don't think that's a good idea.”

“What, what's the worst that could happen? So what, maybe she's got a boyfriend, maybe she turns you down, you've got your answer and you can move on!” Junhui's grinning like a loon. Alcohol makes him absolutely shameless, well, more than usual (which is already about zero percent on the shame scale). “C'mon. I'm serious.”

 

He picks Wonwoo up and starts hustling him around the crowd of dancing bodies. The closer and closer they get, the wilder Wonwoo's thoughts start to turn. His head is literally spinning and he's totally bewildered because he _ate_ and Triple Sec doesn't hit him like this this fast. They're nearly at the VIP deck. The clearer Wonwoo can see Miss Pompom, the more alluring she seems. She's totally uninhibited, the seal-noises of her laughter are strangely endearing, but Wonwoo's too caught up. He can't do this. Shit. He's really bad at words, and even worse with them on alcohol. What if he makes a fool of himself? His stomach rumbles violently and Wonwoo flashes back to the meat in his ramen tasting somewhat odd.

“Junhui,” he says faintly. Junhui doesn't hear him.

Wonwoo's stomach revolts. He turns around and loses his ramen noisily all over Junhui's shirt.

 

* * *

 

 

Mingyu wakes up hung over, but by God she wakes up and thinks, _I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna talk to Hot Beanie Guy_. She speeds through her morning on an Advil and a double espresso and walks into her coding tute and stops in the doorway and nearly throws her coffee to the floor. Never-fucking-mind. She can’t do this.

 

Hot Beanie Guy is situated smack bang across from where she usually sits and _God_ , is he adorable today. He's fast asleep with his cheek propped up in one hand and _is she hallucinating_ he has real, honest to God, sweater paws from swimming in this oversized forest green sweater that plays up his amazing shoulders. Hot Beanie Guy slowly blinks his eyes open. His long dark lashes brush distractingly against his cheeks. He meets her eyes for a second. Mingyu freezes. Her brain helpfully supplies that her mouth must be open, and that can't be pretty. Then it kicks into overdrive - she'd gone lowkey today, with a crop top, knitted midi pencil skirt, a Nike windbreaker, and a beanie, a nod to today’s divine-given task. Mingyu then just - can't. He's actually looking at her, for what feels like the first time, and it's overwhelming having his beautiful eyes actually full on in her direction. Hot Beanie Guy’s face is so blank that Mingyu snaps out of it and hurries to her seat, opening her laptop and feigning absolute absorption in tute work.

 

The group chat is totally blowing up. Mingyu’s squad all know each other’s timetables. They know this is when Mingyu promised to go through with talking to Hot Beanie Guy, but at this point, she’s prepared to pull a political one on them. Some promises are just meant to be broken.

 

> _kingyu_ : omg guys i can't
> 
> _hoshstar chicken_ : what u mean ur in class w mr beanie right or is he not there
> 
> _smol satan_ : lol don't you know mingyu talks a lot of shit i bet she chickened out
> 
> _missing sock_ : so mean woozler
> 
> _memesol:_ i told u shouldve just kissed him like
> 
> _smol satan_ : yeah prob just do that
> 
> _smol satan_ : ur shit w words tbh
> 
> _kingyu_ : oMG GUYS PLEASE U DONT COMPREHEND THE DEPTHS OF MY CAN'T
> 
> _missing sock_ : lolololololol
> 
> _president boosh_ : why exactly can't you
> 
> _president boosh_ : you're better than this mings!!
> 
> _president boosh_ : i thought it told u before
> 
> _president boosh_ : u gotta stand up!!
> 
> _president boosh_ : have confidence!!
> 
> _president boosh_ : owN it sista oWN IT
> 
> _hoshstar chicken_ : just do it omg don't even think about it
> 
> _hoshstar chicken_ : u snapchatted me way too much nike this morning so u'd better
> 
> _hoshstar chicken_ : take ur own brand advice
> 
> _missing sock_ : aja aja uri mingyu
> 
> _missing sock_ : if you screw up my younger brother still has the hots for you
> 
> _missing sock_ : like if you wait a year he'll be legal
> 
> _memesol_ : omfg
> 
> _hoshstar chicken_ : wtaf seok
> 
> _president boosh_ : omg hahahah lee seokmin you pimp
> 
> _kingyu_ : omg seokmin

 

Mingyu sneaks glances over the top of her laptop and finds, to her relief, that Hot Beanie Guy is no longer staring at her with that blank, intimidating gaze. She's freaking. Mingyu didn't anticipate that getting Hot Beanie Guy to Notice Her would be this - intense. Like, she feels like her face is going to melt off from the concentrated hotness of his, uh, laser stare. Hot Beanie Guy looks paler and more haggard than usual, and in equal parts it makes him look like a vampire and also like an invalid that Mingyu wants to take care of - sexual healing style. Since when are undereye circles sexy? Hot Beanie Guy's deep, bruisy dark circles are deeply sexy? What in the world?

 

Wonwoo gives up on staying upright and slumps face first onto his desk. Damn. Last night's weird meat episode had really screwed him up, but it's getting late in the semester and despite his grim prospects for passing Coding, he can’t _not try_ , so he showed up to tute anyway. He swore to himself he was going to concentrate - but Miss Pompoms is too much, from the sliver of toned belly between her crop top and skirt, and the way her Huaraches make her ankles look spectacular. Wonwoo sighs into his arm, before sending a text to Junhui under the table: 'i'm fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.'

 

Hot Beanie Guy stays slumped over the desk for the rest of the tute and by the end of it, Mingyu's chewed her lip raw. Despite Soonyoung's injunctions not to think about things too much, Mingyu's worked herself into a state. What if Hot Beanie Guy actually straight up gave up on life just because of looking at her? Did his soul escape because of looking at her face? On a more rational level, why does Mingyu care anyway? It's not like she's ever talked to him. Her crush, that's spiralling out of control, is completely superficial. Mingyu frowns to herself as she packs up after tute, unable to keep the doubt and dejection off her face. Perhaps she should get this crush under control if she's not going to do anything about it. She doesn't feel like she has the courage to, anyway.

 

Wonwoo peeks over his folded arms and watches pensively as Miss Pompoms seems to get more and more troubled over the course of class. He doesn't like it. He wishes Miss Pompoms would smile her gorgeous smile all the time, and laugh like a dying seal just as much. The stray thought arrives that he'd like to make her smile, but he bats that away with another sigh. His stomach clenches and Wonwoo groans. Ugh. He'd better go find a toilet in case his stomach decides to do something untoward again.

 

Mingyu sends Soonyoung about a bazillion pouty face snaps on the way home, varously captions to convey how shitty she feels about everything. Soonyoung calls her as she's unlocking her door.

“Hey, are you feeling okay, Gyu? Wou know we were joking right, earlier? Probably not in very good taste, but if you can't talk to him then we don't think less of you for it,” he says gently. Soonyoung sounds awkward - uncomfortable. It’s enough of a departure from his usual smooth as hell motormouthing that Mingyu sits up and takes notice.

“It's not that,” Mingyu protests, but she quickly softens.”I- just... all of this is tiring, you know? Like, the not knowing. And it's just making me feel really shitty.”

“Don't let any guy make you feel bad about yourself, Gyu,” Soonyoung says fiercely. “Don't you ever.”

“Soonyoung,” she whines. “Really, it's not that. I’m just tired and fed up with myself. Like, am I that pathetic that I can't even look him in the eye and say hello? I can't stop thinking about it.” Mingyu locks the door and scuffs her shoes off, stubbing her toe on the wall and cursing.

 

“Let's have a movie night,” Soonyoung says suddenly. “Wall to wall disaster movies, for as long as we can stay awake, enough snacks to feed an army. And two tubs of whatever flavour you want from the gelato place near Jihoon's work. My treat. Watcha say, Gyu?”

“Can we watch _Sharknado_?” Mingyu asks in a very small voice.

Soonyoung groans but assents and Mingyu grins. “Fine, _fine_. I get off work a late today. I’ll be there around nine thirty-ish? But tomorrow I'm off so be prepared to stay up till dawn.”

“Am I prepared? Are _you_ prepared, old man?” Mingyu shoots back. Soonyoung squawks and hangs up indignantly. Mingyu chuckles at his antics.

 

Mingyu clears it with Jongin, who is de facto in charge of the apartment, and sets to vacuuming the lounge room like crazy and setting out a veritable blanket and pillow island in which she and Soonyoung can comfortably fall asleep in the middle of marathoning terrible disaster movies. She sets the snacks that they have off to one side and they are miserably few, but Jongin calls her for dinner - he’s made _tteokbokki_ with the sauce from a packet, one of the only things he can cook -  and then she showers and spends twenty minutes wrestling with her tangled hair.  There’s an online submission, that she forgot she had, to finish before Soonyoung comes over, so she doesn't get a chance to go over to the Korean grocer’s across the road to stock up.

 

Soonyoung comes straight from work and borrows Mingyu's shower and some of Jongin's clothes as the older holes up in his bedroom for the night. It's easy for Mingyu and Soonyoung to settle into their usual positions, Soonyoung on the left, Mingyu on the right, his arm tucked comfortably around her shoulders. Though she and Soonyoung are strictly friends, there's a physical pleasure in the closeness that takes Mingyu off edge as they roll through the opening credits of _San Andreas_. As The Rock Johnson starts one of his helicopter scenes, though, Mingyu closes her eyes for a second and imagines that it's Hot Beanie Guy with his arm around her, body firm and warm against hers, and she reels upright. This is too much.

 

“I'm going to go get snacks!” she blurts, scrambling for her wallet, phone and keys. Soonyoung looks at her in surprise, pausing the movie.

“Right now? In the middle of the movie?”

Mingyu nods frantically and shoves her feet into Jongin’s slides. “Just keep watching it, I've seen this one already!”

“We've seen all of them already!” is Soonyoung's protest, muffled through the door.

 

Mingyu dashes out onto the street, face burning. Damn this is stupid, really stupid. Why the hell is she so affected just by the thought of mr beanie? She racks her brains for any time they've spoken or interacted and comes up with a blank, a miracle really considering that they're in the same tute and that group discussion is par for the course. She kicks at a stray pebble in the middle of the road as she crosses the street to the little Korean grocer’s. The worker at the counter is dead asleep on his feet, slumped haphazardly over the register. Mingyu winces but makes her way to the back of the store, pulling out a couple of cans of Podo Bong Bong and Ice Tok. Mingyu knows Soonyoung's tastes like the back of her hand, so the snack aisle is a breeze - plucking bags of sweet and salty snacks off the shelves, then juggling boxes of candies in her hands after that. Mingyu goes for the last six-box of chocopies on the shelf and jumps when her hand collides with someone else's.

 

Oh shit. This is it. Mingyu must have dropped dead and is now experiencing flash forwards of what her life should have involved, had she not spontaneously died, because Hot Beanie Guy is standing in front of her in the flesh, looking like he's been smacked in the face with a side of fish out of the blue. Mingyu briefly debates making a sign of the cross because she hasn't gone to church since she's moved in with Jongin and is not sure about her admittance through the pearly gates, and also because _amen_ Mr Beanie holy mother. Mr Beanie's usually sleepy-looking eyes are widened in alarm? Shock? Bewilderment? And his soft-looking lips are a bitten pink and softly parted. He's swimming in the sweater from before, layered under an even floppier cardigan, over a pair of grey sweats. Mingyu can't take looking at his face any longer (too hot, hot damn), so her gaze falls to his feet and she freaks a little more because he's wearing sparkly blue plastic slippers and socks with little sheep on them. It's adorable, he's adorable, she's going to combust.

 

Hot Beanie Guy’s gaze is starting to feel a little bit like… lasers. Searing into her head. She stops studying his sheep socks and looks at his face - shit Mingyu’s been blinded. His _eyes_. His gorgeous, tall, straight nose. Those lips - she unconsciously licks her own and Wonwoo’s eyes drop to her mouth.

“Uh,” Mingyu lets out a deathly sounding croak. There’s no possible way that she could pretend to not have seen him right? “Do you, uh, need this?” She waves demonstratively at the chocopie box. Hot Beanie Guy is staring at her as if she’s grown another head, or tentacles on her face or something, and Mingyu realises she’s got her bare face out. Mingyu attempts to discreetly cover her face with one hand, but it is not discreet at all. She wants to melt onto the floor and slither under the shelves and hide forever.

 

“You can have it,” he says, finally averting his gaze and rubbing the back of his neck. Internally, Wonwoo is of course panicking, because he’d thought she couldn’t get any more gorgeous and yet here Miss Pompoms is. Her hair is gathered into a messy bun on the top of her head, and chunks of choppy fringe are falling into her pretty brown eyes. She fidgets self-consciously, hefting her overloaded shopping basket against her hip. She’s nearly as tall as wonwoo, dressed simply in a faded grey AC Milan shirt and sweats that cut off a bit above her ankle, hugging her legs just enough to show their shape. Before thinks about what he’s doing, he blurts out, “You’re beautiful.”

Mingyu jumps, fumbling the box of chocopies and dropping it loudly onto the floor.

“I'm sorry?” Mingyu stutters. That’s the real sign that she’s actually dead. There’s no way this is real life.

 

Wonwoo backpedals rapidly. “No, no, no, please don't misunderstand. I don't know if you recognise me but I'm in your coding tute at the university and I swear I haven't been staring at you.” _Shit, Wonwoo you stupid idiot_ , he thinks. What is he even doing? This is a complete disaster. Miss Pompoms is staring at him, and her adorable, slightly chubby cheeks are going red.

 

Mingyu is in dire straits. He knows who she is? He's got a voice that could melt the panties right off her? “Wait, you know who I am?”

“Well, yeah I guess - “

“ _You know who I am_?” She’s starting to sound a bit hysterical, even to her own ears.

Wonwoo mumbles something, shifting awkwardly and pulling at his sweater paws. Mingyu feels like some sort of massive cosmic joke has taken place that all this time, _all this time_ , Hot Beanie Guy has known who she was and only now, when she was looking dumpy as fuck, was he actually showing it?

 

Wonwoo cringes a little bit. Miss Pompoms - Mingyu, he mentally adjusts - is looking all sorts of confused and cross and he shoves his fingers inside his sleeves so that she can't see him twitching. His stupid mouth had run off with him. Why couldn't he stay silent when he wanted to, and speak when the time was right? Was it because he'd caught her looking like a normal person?

Mingyu's brow furrows adorably. “Wonwoo Jeon,” she says, taking a big breath as if to launch into some sort of tirade about how she doesn't want him to even _look_ at her. Wonwoo blinks at her, and she blinks back at him.

“You... know who I am?” he ventures carefully.

Mingyu feels like crying. Holy crap, why hadn't either of them _said_ anything before? “Yes, I know who you are,” she blurts, waving her free hand wildly. “I've known who you are since the first week of sem when you walked in late to lecture looking all deadly attractive and beautiful and hot and wonderful and I've known who you are while I was going to tutes and I've known who you are when I tried so hard to dress cute every morning for Coding tutes so that maybe you'd _look_ at me and - “

 

Mingyu is cut off in the middle of her tirade by the soft press of a pair of warm lips against hers. Wonwoo threads his fingers through hers and breaks the kiss. There’s a vague panic and stupefaction on his face, but something unreadable swimming in his eyes.

“I was always looking at you,” he murmurs, looking away. The tips of his ears are going pink, matching the heat Mingyu feels in her cheeks. “Actually, I'm probably failing Coding cause I'm always looking at you. Wait, that didn't come out well. You haven’t done anything wrong, it's just that - '

Mingyu feels like she's forgotten how to breathe. “What?”

“Oh my God,” he mumbles, “I'm really bad at this. Seriously. I’m really sorry, but bear with me, please.”

Wonwoo seems to be gathering the energy and thoughts to actually lay everything out for the first time, hand still entwined with Mingyu's.

 

“I like you,” he whispers. “Ever since you came into the first tute with your big hat and your little pompom earrings, but every time you wore something new and pretty I had to try really hard to ignore it, and ignore you, because I thought you were out of my league, y’know? Like, seriously, you just have everything so together and you’re smart, and gorgeous, and just _so beyond_ me, when sometimes I can’t even walk out the door in the morning without breaking something or causing a traffic accident. Then that one time I saw you at the Diamond Club with your friends and I got scared because I thought that you might already have a boyfriend and you were so beautiful in the light and I was just, I’m just… me.”

 

Wonwoo runs his hand through his hair. That’s pretty much it for him. It’s all up to Mingyu now. Wonwoo feels a little choked up by how perfect she is. Even if he doesn’t really know that much about her, he has this feeling of her that can’t be explained. Mingyu laughs a little, tilting her chin down and grinning uncontrollably. Her pointy canines show and they’re so, so cute Wonwoo dies a little bit inside.

“Really? I thought the same thing about you,” she confesses shyly, blush deepening. “I mean… I’m me too, huh?” She shrugs. “I’ve… liked you since the first lecture when you were wearing that Thrasher shirt and ripped jeans and the _beanie with the bobble_ I hadn’t even washed my face that day and I got so embarrassed and I just tripped and fell head over heels. Haha. I mean. God. You’re just so cute. Oh, man, that sounds so superficial. I’m really bad at this, I’m sorry.”

She laughs nervously, but a silly smile is overtaking Wonwoo’s face. “We’re both just, really, really terrible at this, right?”

 

“Yeah,” she says, readjusting her shopping basket on her hip, before she thinks better of it and puts it down on the floor, her bun flopping forward and backward with her movements. Suddenly, the beat drop of ‘No Flex Zone’ chimes out of her pocket.  Her left hand jerks towards her pocket, taking Wonwoo’s right hand with it, and they both laugh a little awkwardly. “Sorry, I’m left handed.”

“I know,” he says a bit too quickly, but Mingyu’s face is positively glowing by now. She’s so adorable he wants to cuddle her forever.

Mingyu answers her phone, and Wonwoo’s stomach clenches a bit when she makes a bit of a surprised face and answers, “Soonyoungie! What? No, no I’m okay, I didn’t get kidnapped? No, I’m fine? Yes I’m at the Korean gro - no no no no don’t come and get me, I’ll be right back, I’m getting chocopie, okay, okay bye? Bye!”

 

Mingyu hangs up on Soonyoung’s call in total exasperation. Wonwoo’s expression has totally changed. He has this almost predatory look on his face (a good chance that it might be his neutral face, Mingyu’s willing to call it even), like he wants to undress her and pin her to a wall and fuck her like an animal and it’s pretty embarrassing how down she is with that. “That was my friend Soonyoung! I walked out in the middle of our movie night to buy snacks.”

Wonwoo seems to relax a little bit, as if noticing that his face has gone into neutral-scary mode. He raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn’t really ask beyond that. “Rae Sremmurd, huh?”

Mingyu smiles self-consciously. “Yeah, I just like the beat of it. I did my own verse, but they never have it at karaoke…”

“You’re kidding,” Wonwoo says, “You too?”

“You rap?” she asks, eyes sparkling. “Why didn’t we talk before?”

Wonwoo laughs, and it’s the first time Mingyu’s really taken the sight and sound in. His nose scrunches and he claps a bit, and she thinks she’d probably never get used to it. He shines with some otherworldly inner light when he laughs. “We just did everything backwards.”

“I don’t care. I really like you,” mingyu beams, “and I’m liking you more and more.”

 

They lapse into silence, just facing each other and smiling and feeling warm and looking at each other without worrying whether the other will see them. Wonwoo and Mingyu, Mingyu and Wonwoo, see each other. They see that they _are_ both pretty useless, and it’s so nice just _being_ , that to put words to it might ruin the moment.

“Can I get your number?” Wonwoo asks, sucking his lower lip into his mouth.

Mingyu grins and offers her phone, and he feels butterflies fluttering in his stomach when he takes it from her and the tips of his fingers brush hers. Wonwoo offers his own phone for her to input her number. Mingyu takes it, nicknaming herself ‘pompom mingyu ❤︎’.

 

Wonwoo heads out first as she lingers in the snack aisle, trying to organise her snack basket and her emotions. Wonwoo waves at her from outside, but he’s not watching where he’s walking and nearly runs into a telegraph pole. He curls over himself in embarrassment, but he’s laughing, and so is she, cheeks aching with how hard she’s smiling. Mingyu waves at him with a stupid grin splitting her face until she can’t see him anymore, squealing to herself under her breath as she hauls her snacks to the register. She can’t even bring herself to feel guilty when she spends way too much on the food, and near-skips back to the apartment, still sporting that idiotic smile.

 

“Mingyu! What took you so long?” Soonyoung demands, sitting up from the couch. He pauses _San Andreas_ again and yells when Mingyu pounces at him with a shriek, tackling him sideways. “Ooft! Holy shit, what the - ?”

Mingyu scrabbles for her phone and unlocks it, shaking it in Soonyoung’s face whilst bouncing up and down. “Ashaskdjhkdh!” Written there is a phone number under the contact name ‘beanie wonwoo ❤︎’

“Wait,” Soonyoung frowns at her phone. An expression of absolute incredulity dawns on his face. “No way, Mingyu. Hot Beanie Guy? At the grocer’s?”

 

(“That is literally the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard,” Jihoon says over the rim of his double espresso, when Mingyu recounts the story to the rest of them at one of their gang coffee dates. But then again, ever since their fateful meeting over chocopie in the middle of the night, Wonwoo and Mingyu have been pretty disgusting - as in, matching sweats, bad puns, nerdy movies and couple mixtapes level of disgusting. Wonwoo, who has somehow wormed his way into their group outings by virtue of being magnetically attracted to Mingyu, has been looking at her the whole time with the softest expression on his face. He grins, burying his face in his girlfriend’s neck as she complains. Mingyu, though she looks totally absorbed in fending off Jihoon’s savage remarks, winds an arm around his waist, leaning her cheek into his hair. Maybe they’re not so useless after all.) 


End file.
